. . . well it's funny but it didn't seem so strange.'
'But surely he couldn't really locate this lost iron-age kingdom?'
'This boy could do anything. You know how he pinpointed where it was? Triangulation. He set up recording devices at points along the coast where people claimed they could hear the ghostly bells; then he analysed the Doppler shift in the frequencies and then did a load of sums I wouldn't have a clue about and triangulated the source of the bells. Unbelievable. And that was just the start. Then he took echo soundings to map the terrain and draw up the drainage scheme. And to cap it all he designed the Ark.'
'I don't get it, what did he do wrong? I thought Lovespoon loved the idea. Was he trying to steal the boy's glory?'
Iolo shook his head and took a breath. 'It wasn't anything to do with Cantref-y-Gwaelod. Of course Lovespoon loved the project; he told me to give Brainbocs all the assistance he needed. Not that he needed any. But then one day the kid changed tack. Just like that. Came in with a gleam in his eye that was even crazier than the usual one. He started working in a different section of the Museum. He said he'd had this new idea and that it was going to be
'And the Welsh teacher didn't approve?'
'The kid told me not to tell Lovespoon — it was meant to be a surprise. But the teacher found out anyway.'
'And that's when they put the stain on the camisole?'
'It wasn't a camisole, it was a rare corso-pantaloon in tea rose crepe de chine.'
'So what was the new area of research? What did he switch to?'
The chair made a low farting sound as Iolo turned to face me. The light glistening on the two sad puddles of his eyes. 'I'll tell you. Only don't ask me to explain it, because even now —'
He paused.
'Yes?'
'Even now I have no idea what was so bad about the new -'
There was a sound from outside the car. The museum curator froze, his jaw agape. I threw my hand across, to grab his arm. To reassure him. But it was too late. He was staring with a wild, transfixed look past the side of my head. I spun round and saw out there in the featureless night, hovering on the threshold of discernibility, dark figures. Like crows or, more accurately, like the woman in the trench coat I had fought with earlier in the day.
'You bastard!' cried Iolo as he tore free of my hand. 'You dirty, double-crossing bastard!' He threw the car door open, and ran out into the night. By the time I too had got out of the car both he and the mysterious figures were gone.
*
It was well after eleven when I picked up Calamity and drove back to Aberystwyth. Just outside Llanrhystyd an ambulance streaked past at full pelt in the opposite direction. With the roads so empty it shot through the darkened countryside like a blue flashing arrow. As things turned out, the high speed was in vain. By that time Iolo Davies was already dead.
Chapter 11
EEYORE PEERED AT the button through the magnifying glass he used for the 'spot the ball' competitions. 'Yep,' he said. 'It's them all right.'
'Sweet Jesus League?'
He nodded.
At first glance it looked like any other black plastic button, the sort all old ladies had on their overcoats, but if you looked closely at the holes for the thread you could see they were arranged differently. There were two large round ones, and underneath that a single triangular one, and then beneath that a rectangular one. The shape of the button wasn't perfectly round, either, but had indentations on either side that made it look vaguely potato-like. Sewn on to a coat these things would be difficult to spot. But hold the button up to the daylight and you saw it straight away: it was a skull. Eeyore handed the button back to me, over the gleaming back of Henrietta. I leaned my arms on her saddle as she stood looking patiently over the railings and out to sea.
According to the newspaper Iolo Davis had been found at the foot of the cliff. Broken turf high up on the cliff's edge had indicated where he lost his footing in a tragic accident. His injuries were entirely consistent with a fall and foul play was not suspected. That was the official version anyway.
'Not the old bags who sell pamphlets outside the Moulin,' Eeyore continued. 'This belongs to the big girls: the ESSJAT.'
'ESSJAT?'
'It's a sort of secret commando unit; an elite force drawn from the ranks of the foot soldiers. The name comes from the initial letters of Sweet Jesus against Turpitude.'
I whistled.
'Officially, they don't exist.'
'And I led them straight to him.'
He scoffed. 'Don't waste time blaming yourself. They would have got him eventually; they always do.'
'I should have taken more care.'
'No Louie!' he snapped with an uncharacteristic edge in his voice. 'Once he was on their list he was dead. It was only a matter of time. You have to accept that.'
'Where do I find them?'
'You don't. I mean you can't. Or, you shouldn't.'
'You know I've got to.'
'No one knows who they are or where they are. They make the postman wear a blindfold.'
'Come on, Dad . . .'
'What business is it of yours, anyway? You think this Evans the Boot chap deserves it?'
'It's not about him, you know that.'
'What is it about then?'
'Lots of things.'
He paused and stroked Henrietta's mane and then said with an air of resignation, 'Well, I suppose you're going to go ahead and look for them whatever I say. But don't go round thinking you killed Davies. If the ESSJAT were after him, he was a dead man walking. It's that simple.'
*
The avuncular white-bearded man kneels at the shore's edge and stares through narrowed eyes out to sea. Around him children gather. The man speaks.
'That's our land out there, beneath those constantly shifting waters. A good land, a rich land. A land where our people can reap and sow and our children's laughter will fill each silver day-'
Calamity Jane picked up the remote control and turned off the TV. 'What crap!'
'Now, now! There's no need for language like that.'
'Who wants to go to Cantref-y-Gwaelod anyway?'
'Quite a lot of people, it seems.'
'Why do they have to do TV commercials then?' She threw the remote control on to the sofa and started pacing up and down the office, counting off points on her fingers. 'Item one: Brainbocs masterminded the plan to reclaim Cantref-y-Gwaelod. Lovespoon loved that scheme. Item two: then he starts researching something else. Lovespoon hates that and tells the Museum curator not to help him. Then the curator loses his job and then . . .' she paused. 'And then he fell off a cliff.'
We exchange glances like guilty children.
'Item three: Brainbocs hid the essay in a well-known beauty spot and was looking for a woman called Gwenno.'
'Item four,' it was my turn, 'Evans the Boot had a piece of Mayan tea cosy in his possession.'
'Not Mayan — Welsh, it was just a Mayan design . . .'
The words trailed off and she looked over to the door. Myfanwy was standing framed in the doorway and she didn't look pleased.
'Hey, come in!'
'I'll stay here, thank you, I'm not staying.'
